The Libra Moon opposes the Aries Sun tomorrow at 3:19 pm EDT. That will be a Full Moon, the first nocturnal celestial event most of us learn to identify. No two Full Moons are alike. Every Full Moon is distinguished by its own unique visual tableau and astrological context. As regards to both appearance and astrology, it will best serve your life’s purpose to characterize tomorrow’s opposition of the luminaries (Sun and Moon) with a simple phrase: up close and personal.
The up close is straightforward. Luna is one day from being full and two days from perigee, its closest approach to Earth. That means tomorrow’s Libra Full Moon will look big (especially near the horizon), and have a big influence on the tides. The magnified appearance and gravity will carry over to the personal.
The Moon is inherently personal. It is associated with the night when many of us sleep, the ultimate personal time. Luna is also evocative of that which is personally felt. Most of you understand from experience that observing the lunar monthly maximum brings up strong feelings inside yourself. Many of us know from observing the behavior of others during a Full Moon that those strong feelings are common to nearly all. Indeed, the same personal feelings and public behaviors are often in evidence when a Full Moon is not readily seen or consciously anticipated. That’s where the straightforward appearance and demonstrable tidal influence of a luminary opposition begins to spill over into the subtle and symbolic.
Each and every Full Moon is the monthly culmination of a lunar cycle. Those lunar cycles have been going on for as long as there has been life on Earth. It appears that life on Earth began in the oceans, where it necessarily adapted not only to the radiation of the Sun but also to the combined gravitational influence both luminaries exert on the tides. It also appears that the oceans ascended to dry land in the form of living cells, each containing complex molecules floating in a close equivalent of seawater.
It would follow, then, that the complex molecules in living cells, including yours today, carry an encoded memory of whence they came. Your cells are thus, at the very least, physically synchronized in correspondence with the lunar cycles, even if the Moon’s gravity cannot be demonstrated to function over the width of a cell in the same way it influences the breadth of the seas. When cellular life became sentient, the evolved physical correspondence to luminary cycles flowed into and synchronized with correspondence gained from conscious observation.
Conscious observation is something you do all the time. It is part of, but not exclusive to, being human. Conscious observations become useful to others when they are correlated and recorded in some manner that makes it unnecessary to repeat the original observation each and every time. That protocol of observation, correlation and correspondence is one way that we humans distinguish ourselves from other living things. It is a practice that resulted in tide tables. It also resulted in the astrology that tells us that tomorrow’s Full Moon is distinguished by being as up close and personal on the symbolic level as it is on the observably physical and perceptibly visceral level. That’s because of how the signs occupied by the opposing luminaries carry that symbolism, through the ages, up from the oceans, out of our cells and into our awareness. It begins with where the Sun will be.
Tomorrow, the Sun will be in Aries. As a cardinal sign, Aries symbolizes the initiative to life in the individual cell or collection of cells, distinguishing self from the undifferentiated sea. As a fire sign, Aries is the unlikely and assertive expression of fire in us all. Aries is ruled by Mars, which is referred to as a personal planet, not only because its cycles repeat many times in your life, but also because Mars symbolizes, in the words of Robert Hand, “the energy that an individual uses to maintain itself in the face of pressures from its environment.” Sun in Aries is thus the representation of living consciously as an individual, shining self, both projecting energy into the world and encountering another doing the same. That encounter with other is where the Libra Moon comes in.
Libra opposes Aries on the zodiac just as horizons do, as opposing sides of he sky. Libra is also a cardinal sign, but its initiative is towards balancing the awareness of self with that of others. As an air sign, Libra symbolizes an intellectual realization that life cannot be sustained by repeating its original and unlikely emergence. Libra is ruled by Venus, another personal planet, which (once again in the words of Robert Hand) “always has to work with the power of Mars” to manifest what neither alone can accomplish, the continuation of life. Moon in Libra is a personal understanding of the principle that no individual, no matter how energetic, can sustain its own kind by itself. The Full Moon in Libra is the full illumination of that principal, culminating a long journey across the sky.
Rising at sundown, the fully illuminated lunar disc travels across the entire sky in the course of a night, setting at dawn. That journey of opposition and synthesis has been repeated as the climax of every luminary cycle for as long as life has lived on Earth. It is as close as every cell in your body, as personal as your dreams. It is a journey that stretches across the dark abyss of a single night, connecting one day to the next in a continuum of light and a triumph of life. The Libra Full Moon tomorrow takes that journey back to where it started, in a long ago sea, when the active found something to act with and the receptive found itself acted on in a cycle of life that resulted in cells, that collected in consciousness which now observe and correspond to our own beginnings. That’s about as close and personal as it gets.
Offered In Service
Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.
Thank you Len, I appreciate this. Actually both feel right. Shortly after the new moon, I was starting to feel an accumulating feeling that the person I was with was somehow reaching an impending choice of whether to proceed further. That conversation finally happened last sunday, one that I initiated. The aspiration part was my desire to be with someone in integrity to my authentic self. The full moon brought another conversation with her, one that made me feel I did the right thing despite me feeling very sad about this loss.
The landscape since Feb has been tough. With Mars retro, I felt my libido change from outward expression to inner readjustment and then get psychologically slammed for not being macho enough or responsive enough. Then I’m fending off internal/external judgments. So I keep going through it not being too hard on myself. Then Mercury goes into the mix. Just as it stations, I’m being prompted to have this conversation I described. But it’s like talking through fog. It feel like I’m really talking to myself “in the shower”. How do I know I’m right? Maybe I’m just reacting to fears, or simply reacting too soon, or out of bad information. Now the full moon hits and Mars is almost standing still, and I’m like, “what happened?!” and feeling like I’m floating in a deep well.
So, I’m putting some trust out there hoping that the answers are coming, that my intuition is going to pay off. Perhaps when the new moon/full moon in my Sun Moon axis gets highlighted, esp with Mars direct, this landscape will be brighter.
Thanks Len! Appreciate it…
HS
Hugging Scorpio: Thank you. You are seen and heard. If you are a Libra natal ascendant, a Full Moon along your natal ascendant-descendant axis could mean several things, depending on the context of your chart. One must look at the chart as a whole. Nonetheless, here’s a couple things it could mean: It could mean to look at your aspirations because you just may have attained one of them while you were not looking – congratulations. It could also mean that a relationship situation that took place since the Aries New Moon (March 22) may have, upon contemplation and integration, illuminated something about yourself that you were not previously, fully aware of (one again, congratulations). Please, does that work for you?
Len, tonight I thought of a question that I hope you will still see here: If I am Libra rising, how does that Full Moon affect the ascendant sign? I usually refer to the Sun sign with full moon placements, but I’m not sure here. Can you help with some words?
Thanks!
HS
Jenn, Carrie, Huffy, Hugging, aword, and a-priori: Thank you all so very much
Oh, Len – I’m late to the comments but I could not be absent to such eloquent writing, enough to make me swoon. Seriously. The Sun, the Moon, the oceans, life – all initiating and in balanced relationship. Thank you, Len, for such profound words that engender hope on the journey. Thank you so much.
JannKinz
One more thought; the mood affects tides, affects cells, affects the chemical pathways in our brains and hormonal pathways. I have been thinking (and feeling) about that for some time now.
Oh Len, this was just perfect. I just finished watching a free video online that seems to go with what is happening in the heavens right now. It is the movie “Thrive.”
Here’s the link to it if anyone is interested: http://www.thrivemovement.com/the_movie
It was worth the time to watch it. It may sound all doom and gloom at first but it isn’t. It is a blueprint and hopeful message that so fits the astrology of now.
Thank you so very much dear Len and Be.“All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us.” Wonderful. xxx
Len and Be, a big thanks to both of you. Len, I love the way you describe the cellular connection to the Moon.
…and I can’t resist:
four mutable points, three asteroids, two luminaries, and a full moon in its perigee…
😉
HugS
Be, lol re messages and cells —- I had the urge this past week to insure that my son and I were full-up on Niacin.
Ya. Nope. Don’t know “why” but I complied. 😉
Everything else? Up in the Air fer sure.
Thx!
be,
yes,
i got
that
memo
today
too.
biren: Thank you for a stimulating quote from a transcendent being. It’s a good question, will to power or power of the Moon. It is such a privilege to be alive in Earth, and you, biren, make me feel very fortunate to be here with you.
Burning River: Thank you. The moon dance is better than chocolate.
aword: Thank you. That’s the ticket.
be: be-utiful once again. If that’s a spoiler, i’ll have another. Thank you for the excellent treatise on the content and context of this particular sesquiquadrate (an aspect i can’t pronounce without falling down) and the contributing semi-square. Discernment is thy name, beautiful be.
John: Thank you for your question. Richard Tarnas would be a good read for you if you want to get astrology that would interest you. As for your question, i will answer with a quote, not from Tarnas but from Tolkien’s character Gandalf: “All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us.” Maybe i’ll be there to shake your hand, John.
Fellow travelers, students, and teachers,
I am barely a student of Astrology, and would certainly benefit from the inputs of the well informed that swim these waters. I certainly live by the laws, such as when there are sufficient causes and conditions, the effects will manifest, and value Astrology for the insight it can offer into conditions.
Which leads to the pressing question … is the current Astrology, which feels to me as a Potent and Favorable Full Moon opposing War-like Aries conducive to operations involving a massive series of relatively peaceful arrests taking down the corrupt members of Finance, Govt, etc. and replacing the current financial system with something far more equitable for all?
spoiler alert! The Moon IS powerful I agree. She’s gonna look big and she’s gonna move the tides and she will fill the Emergency Rooms all over the world tonight. But think for a moment about why the Moon looks big, fat and pregnant. It is so easy when we are so busy with so much happening all at the same time, to miss important messages. We can’t blame Mercury retrograde now. You are getting a message and I believe it is that our cells are preparing us for another evolutionary leap. Len quotes Robert Hand who tells us that Venus and Mars have to work together to manifest what they can’t do by themselves. We know – or should know by now – that Venus is squaring Neptune at this moment. That aspect holds through to the Full Moon tomorrow. Here are some things to consider regarding these two somewhat straightforward and somewhat deceptive aspects.
At the time of the exact Full Moon tomorrow the big fat Moon will aspect both Neptune and Venus with something called a sesquiquadrate. When it is perfect, it is 135 degrees apart and tomorrow the Moon makes a perfect sesquiquadrate to both Venus and Neptune. Well, in this world we know that the word “perfect” can be used glibly, so let me just say that a square aspect between planets is serious business, whereas a sesquiquadrate, although irritating and frustrating, is much easier to handle. So consider the Moon to be providing an intervention into your difficulties described by the square between Venus and Neptune.
The sesquiquadrate is in the same family as a square mind you, but is only 3/8’s of a circle whereas the square is a full 1/4th of the same circle. “Unexpected limitations, problems and changes in plans can hinder the individual’s freedom of self-expression. (so say F. Sakoian & L. Acker in The Minor Aspects) You might need greater discipline and sensitivity as well as discernment and organization at this time. But just remember, this might be a blessing in disguise when we are talking about a full, full Moon in Libra, the sign of relationships, at the same time that Neptune squares Venus. Venus also squares Mars but she can deal with him on a different level, a little later. Neptune might be the higher octive of Venus, but right now she’s got to deal with the practicalities of life-on-earth. Yes, something will probably have to be “let go”, but in the long run it will likely be a good thing.
Of course the Sun will be semi-square Venus and Neptune at the same time the Moon is doing her intervention. That aspect was mentioned in the previous PW article about the Full Moon. It is 45 degrees and it too will be perfect. As in Storm. It is quite similar to the sesquiquadrate in how it affects our lives, but realize it is better to break up the hard aspect of the square between Venus and Neptune and spread it around; it will soften the blow. And lucky for us, Venus is quite agile in Gemini and can smile on both sides of her pretty face. Remember this if and when you must deal with many situations and people all at the same time. Never let them see you sweat and try to make that smile look real, and don’t forget to take notes as Len suggests. I believe the lumineries are giving us time to cope with what could be too much to handle all at once. spoiler alert over, carry on.
be
This is lovely, Len! I accept the journey, through my universal consciousness to my and our collective beginnings. I can feel the flow already.
hi biren! interesting quote, thanks.
On one hand I would say yes, but on another I would say, why the need/desire to “escape.” How about dance?
;>)
Everything living on the Earth, people, animals, plants, is food for the moon…. All movements, actions, and manifestations of people, animals, and plants depend upon the moon and are controlled by the moon…. The mechanical part of our life depends upon the moon, is subject to the moon. If we develop in ourselves consciousness and will, and subject our mechanical life and all our mechanical manifestations to them, we shall escape from the power of the moon.
—G. I. Gurdjieff